Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Tall Tales from the Library...

As a boy, young Stuart grew up dirt poor, in a poor country town. The local library had only a few hundred books, and it was a good five-mile walk from his farmhouse, but whenever he could, young Stuart made the dusty hike into town. He spent every free moment sitting beside the dirty window in the library's single oak chair, reading mysteries, and novels, and history... and when he finished these he even devoured the gardening and cook books.

All young Stuart could dream about as he was growing up was owning a bookstore, but dreams, like life, sometimes take unexpected twists. Stuart never did own that bookstore, although he went on to a string of successful careers, and was, by most any standards, a success. But still the dream remained.

Sometimes at night, in the middle of a deep sleep, it would return to him.

He would suddenly find himself standing at the bottom of a long ladder that went up and up and up, and he would start climbing that ladder, and it grew darker and darker around him, until all he could see were the worn wooden rungs in front of his face. Still he would keep climbing, hand over hand, his feet growing numb with the step-up, step-up, on and on and on. But then he reached the top, and climbed through a trap door, and suddenly he was in a room filled with books, and he could see a doorway at the end of the room, and beyond it was another room filled with books, and beyond it yet another.

And there were all sorts of books, big and little, softcovers and hardcovers, old books and new books, books on history, and novels, and science and cookbooks and big leather-bound books, and books with colored plates, and books about travels to far-off lands, and just books and books and books and books...

...and then he would wake up, and find himself sitting still in the darkness of his big house, sounds of the night city moving by outside, his wife sleeping quietly beside him, and a sudden feeling of complete desperation would quickly run through him. But just as suddenly he would push it away, and remind himself of how good his life was, even with all the job-related hassles, without that far off, long-ago, little boy's dream of owning a bookstore...

Being President of the United States was not, after all, so bad a job.